A Cold, Cold World is a cop mystery. Sheriff Bet Rivers is facing her first real challenge: the snowstorm of the century is bearing down on the small town of Collier, WA. She has a plan for keeping the main loop clear, the residents warm and healthy. Now she just needs to worry about her only deputy’s 9-months-pregnant wife and the dead body found on Iron Horse Ridge.
Bottom line: A Cold, Cold World is for you if you like classic mysteries against a background of life in action.
Listen to the first chapter and full review here or wherever you find Mysteries to Die For podcast
Elena Taylor spent several years working in theater as a playwright, director, designer, and educator before turning her storytelling skills to fiction. She writes the Sheriff Bet Rivers mysteries, featuring a female sheriff filling her late father’s rather big shoes in her small, mountain town. She also writes the quirky Eddie Shoes mysteries under the name Elena Hartwell. Elena is a senior editor with Allegory Editing, a boutique editing house, where she works one-on-one with writers to shape and polish manuscripts. Elena’s favorite place to be is at Paradise, the property she and her hubby own south of Spokane, Washington.
A note from the author: A Cold, Cold, World is available now in hardback, audio, and ebook. Paperback release is April 2025
A Cold, Cold World is promoted by Partners In Crime Tours, who represents a network of 300+ bloggers offering tailor-made virtual book tours and marketing options for crime, mystery and thriller writers from around the world. Founded in 2011, PICT offers services for well-established and best-selling authors, as well as those just starting out with their careers. PICT prides itself on its tailored packages for authors, with a personal touch from the tour coordinators. For more information, check out their website partnersincrimetours.com
Betrayalis a thriller. Corporal Tina Clarke received a medical discharge from the Army. She didn’t want it or need it, but there she is, back in Kingman, AZ with no options, no future, and one friend who has problems of her own. A lawyer for everyman, Bobby Black, thinks Tina has potential and if she can get out from under the Army’s eye, she just might make something out of this hole she’s in.
Bottom line: Betrayal is for you if you like thrillers at an “every day” level where underdogs have heroes, too.
This is the origin story. We know Tina Clarke’s Army experience does not match working in the motor pool as her official papers show. But what exactly she did, well, that’s classified. We know she was unceremoniously discharged and returned to her point of origin: Kingman, AZ. Without an official transition, Tina has nothing but a high school BFF who is living on the lower side of life and a lawyer who gave us the high stakes game to work from a storefront.
The characters are intelligently crafted, allowing room to grow as the series develops. Tina has her secrets and is trying to figure out the game being played and who can be trusted. The lawyer, Bobby Black, is shrewd, bold, and comes at cases from all angles, even those less than legal. Beryl is the BFF who grew up to be a diner waitress who sells drugs for the local gang, Kingman Roughnecks while trying to avoid questions about her recently deceased boyfriend from the gang, the cops, and Tina. The cast of characters includes a detective trying to solve the case of a drug buy gone very wrong and the head of biker gang working to get his money and the product while keeping control of his gang. Every character is out for their own goal…maybe with the exception of Bobby. He is the white knight in the sea of gray.
The thrill comes from the conflict created when the goals of these characters collide. Tina is, to some extent, caught in the middle. Not one to run and hide, she decides to fight her way out.
The logic of this holds well. The characters act according to their primary goals and it’s a matter of who is going to come out on top. The pacing of the story is a bit slower than typical in a thriller. I chalk this up to being an origin story, which builds the backstory and motivation for the lead character to become the hero.
This is the first book in the series and was an easy read. The characters were easy to distinguish (something I often struggle with) which added to my enjoyment.
Private Investigator Matt Cramer is on a hot case, doing a solid for his buddy Harry and his insurance company on an arson case. Liberta Pharma backed a start-up company working on a cutting edge vaccine. The fire took out the research and the custom equipment. Matt knows it’s somebody in the lab with an accelerant and fire. He needs our help with the ‘somebody.’ Here’s his shallow suspect pool in the order we met them: .
Paul Larson, former Liberty researcher turned entrepreneur with ValenceTech
Alexa Holder, investment manager who is reeling in the investors
Randy Cline, vaccine manager on whose work ValenceTech is built
Leslie Ellis, former assistant who mistrusted the group’s ethics
Josh Walker, influencer and anti-vaxxer looking for a conspiracy
Listen here or wherever you find Mysteries to Die For Podcast
Ed Teja is a full-time writer and part-time martial arts instructor. His stories (which have little or no respect for genre and take place in one or more of the surreal worlds he lives in) have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His new thriller series about Tina Clarke, the world’s first Storefront Assassin, is available on Amazon.
Check out the upcoming episode for Season 8: Anything but Murder on our new website m2d4podcast.com
Hello everyone! The break for the holidays was the perfect time to push out some changes to Mysteries to Die For. Just in time for our 8th Season: Anything but Murder, Mysteries to Die For is breaking off of TG Wolff’s writer website to a stand alone site:
Better organized and dedicated to the mysteries you love to solve, m2d4podcast.com is the site for:
Season 8 podcasts available days before it drops
NEW Author page with links to your favorite author’s episodes and website
Past seasons more readily accessible
UPDATED Toe Tags book reviews organized by date and by mystery type
Better companion anthology page
Follow the link and subscribe to m2d4podcast.com to keep receiving the (almost) weekly emails with episode and Toe Tag announcements.
Friday, January 10 it begins….
Join us for Episode 1: Who Shot Liberty’s Valence by Ed Teja where a startup pharma lab has gone up in flames. Suspected arson is the crime in this murderless whodunnit.
What’s next for TGWolff.com?
Over the coming weeks, the Mysteries to Die For content will transition out allowing tgwolff.com to focus on TG’s adventures in writing, both for podcast episode and full length mysteries.
Thanks for being a subscriber and we hope to see you on the new site and for the new season!
I am fortunate in that the Toe Tags I do as part of Mysteries To Die For exposes me to many authors and titles I wouldn’t ordinarily find on my own. Add to that list the books that are recommended by other readers and the ones my husband gives me and, well, I read a lot of mystery, crime fiction, and thrillers. This post contains those that I gave 5 start ratings to. To earn 5 stars from me, a story has to have flawless logic, no loose ends, great characters, and, of course, be entertaining. Happy Reading Detectives!
Elephant Safariis a political thriller. Documentary film maker Pero Baltazar and elite guide Mbuno are on a walking safari when they come across a herd of elephants being terrorized by poachers. After intervening, they take on the responsibility of protecting the herd and ending the poaching, which draws them into an international conspiracy they could not imagine
Bottom line: Elephant Safari is for you if you like dramatically intense political thrillers and the exotic environs of East Africa.
Listen to an excerpt here or wherever you get Mysteries to Die For
Peter Riva has traveled extensively throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe, spending many months spanning thirty years with legendary guides for East African adventurers. He created the Wild Things television series in 1995 and has worked for more than forty years as a literary agent. Riva writes science fiction and African adventure books, including the Mbuno & Pero thrillers. He lives in Gila, New Mexico.
Detective Connolly is back. This time he’s dying to meet Staniel Purquees. The problem is the fungus king is dead. The four suspects have been sequestered in a hangar in dire straits. To survive, Connolly has to deduce the role each has played – rock, paper, or scissors – to find the killer known as shoot.
Listen here or wherever you find Mysteries to Die For podcast.
The Light Beside the Seais a cozy mystery. Julia Bonatti is an astrologer who gives guidance to others to allay fears of change and the future. Yet, she is stuck in her own past, one that won’t lie quiet. A few, short years ago, her fiancé Michael was killed in a hit-and-run as he returned from an archeological expedition. Now it comes to light that he wasn’t the only grad student related to the project or the professor who has died. The latest was just days ago. Now Julia is asking questions. By solving one death, she just may be able to provide closure on them all.
Bottom line: The Light Beside the Sea is for you if you like cozy mysteries and a touch of the unexpected.
Listen to the prologue and first chapter here or wherever you get Mysteries to Die For podcast
TG Wolff Review
Julia is our narrator and the detective in this story. One of the first challenges of the amateur sleuth mystery is how to inject the detective. In this case, Julia was invited in through multiple doors including other grieving wives/girlfriends and the bad guy. Julia isn’t a pushy / nosey as many cozy sleuths. She more finds doors that are open and goes through them rather than forcing her way through. She is easy to respect and like. With this is Julia’s fifth story, so she is a well developed character.
The main story is a mix of a mystery and a conspiracy. The older deaths were officially closed as accidents, not homicides. The newest death is undeniably murder. Through stories told by loved ones of the deceased, her fiancé Michael’s notebook, and a few experts in their fields, Julia pieces together the events and motivations until she unearths some shady characters.
Julia is consistent and true to herself in her actions. The logic of a story is more often tied to the actions of the Bad Guy. Looking from the end back to the beginning, I am left with a few questions.
The subplots have the zany element readers look forward to in a cozy. Julia’s grandmother’s next door neighbor had disappeared just as her daughter was forcing her from her home into a faraway elder care facility. Then there is the drama with the staff of The Mystic Eye book store with Rupert and the woman he cares for.
The pacing in the book is fairly fast with Julia hopping between the main and side story lines. Individually, the stories unfold at a stepwise pace. The astrology cozy element is fresh and, at times, highly technical. I won’t claim to have understood all of the explanations Julia gave to her clients, but they were interesting. There is an element of mysticism above and beyond Julia’s chosen path that adds a sense of wonder and suspense.
Overall, this was an entertaining read. Fans of the cozy genre who are looking for a fresh take should check on the Julia Bonatti and the Zodiac Mystery series.
Meet Connie Di Marco
Connie di Marco is the author of the Zodiac Mysteries featuring San Francisco astrologer Julia Bonatti, a woman who never thought murder would be part of her practice. The Light Beside the Sea is the fifth novel in the series. Writing as Connie Archer, she is also the author of the national bestselling Soup Lover’s Mysteries from Penguin Random House. You can find her excerpts and recipes in The Cozy Cookbook and The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook. Connie is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Crime Writers Association (UK) and Sisters in Crime.
Partners In Crime Tours represents a network of 300+ bloggers offering tailor-made virtual book tours and marketing options for crime, mystery and thriller writers from around the world. Founded in 2011, PICT offers virtual book tour services for well-established and best-selling authors, as well as those just starting out with their careers. PICT prides itself on its tailored packages for authors, with a personal touch from the tour coordinators. For more information, check out their website partnersincrimetours.com
Anti-gun activatist Riley Keane has done the unthinkable. In a crisis situation, she shot at two men wrestling. But did she shoot the assailant or her close friend and Chicago police officer Reece Taylor? Either way, she’s too hot to stay in her hometown. Now Alderman Finn O’Farrell, Riley’s lover, is left to deal with the fallout of threats, accusations, and blackmail.
Listen here or wherever you get Mysteries to Die For podcast
Meet Cheryl L. Reed
A former staff editor and reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and other publications, Cheryl L. Reed’s stories have won multiple awards, including Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. She has twice been awarded a U.S. Fulbright Scholar fellowship by the State Department, first in Ukraine and then in Central Asia. Reed is the author of the nonfiction book Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns and the novel Poison Girls, which won the Chicago Writers’ Association Book of the Year. She splits her time between Washington, DC and her home near the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.
It’s 1895 and Payne McPherson has arrived at her professor’s home for a study session to find her hanging from her French doors. She turns to Cleveland police detective Cian Kelly for help and appoints herself his assistant. Their investigation takes a sinister twist when they find the remnants of a hangman game her professor lost. And she wasn’t the only one.
Listen here or wherever you get Mysteries to Die For podcast.
TG Wolff 